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Top seniors to be honored as 2017 Presidential Scholars

contact: Jeanne BaronMarch 27, 2017 | WMU News

KALAMAZOO, Mich.—Fifty students will be recognized as Western Michigan University's top seniors for 2017 during the 37th annual Presidential Scholars Convocation starting at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 28, on campus in the Bernhard Center.

Each year, faculty members from across the University select the most outstanding senior in their various academic schools, departments and programs to represent their units as a WMU Presidential Scholar. This year, 50 scholars were chosen from a senior class of more than 5,941 students.

The Presidential Scholar designation is the highest academic honor that WMU can bestow on its undergraduates. Selection is based on the students' general academic excellence, academic and artistic excellence relative to their majors, and intellectual and artistic promise.

The 2017 Presidential Scholars Convocation, which is by invitation only, will include a program featuring a keynote address by Dr. John M. Dunn, president of WMU. Also making remarks will be Dr. Suzan F. Ayers, president of the WMU Faculty Senate, and Taylor Hall, vice president of the Western Student Association. After each of this year's scholars are recognized and awarded certificates, a dessert reception will be held while the scholars have their pictures taken with Dunn and Ayers.

Long list of talented students

This year's Presidential Scholars include a speech-language pathology and audiology major who envisions a career with the Department of Veterans Affairs or the U.S. Army and a double major in behavioral science and sociology who is interested in behavioral-based treatments and interventions for substance use disorders.

The long list of talented scholars also includes an active astrophysics researcher who is passionate about improv as well as standup comedy, a former intern with the Telamon Corp. and National Farmworker Jobs programs who has been helping low-income fieldworker families in southwest Michigan, and a working single mother who returned to school after 22 years and graduated magna cum laude in December.